User blog:Antimatterkill/walls and pen mechanics
Hey guys, a couple of you might check this out becuase you just heard me say that you can shoot through walls. this is absolutely true. In fact, this mechanic is so core to the game, that im suprised I dont see more people using it. Many times on warehouse, people fail to realize that the plywood is concealment, not cover. In order to understand how Phantom forces handles walls and obstacles, you need to know the difference between cover and concealment. Cover will stop bullets. concrete barriers and thick* walls, are good cover in most cases. now, onto concealment. Concealment is any obstacle that will hide you, but will not stop a bullet for you. These include glass, plywood, cars, scaffolding, and will NOT prevent you from being hit. You may notice that "thick walls" has an asterisk next to it. Belive it or not, most weapons can penetrate walls, even if they dont do it effectively. Most assault rifles have penetration capabilities between 1 and 1.5 studs of material, just enough to get through most walls in any map if you hit flush to the wall. However, even M-60, with a awesome 3 studs of penetration, is not guaranteed to penetrate the wall, because of angles, sweet sweet angles. If you were to take an M4A1, with 1.2 studs of penetration and shoot a 1 stud wall, it would go through, and carry about one fifth of its original damge* (more on this later) However, if you shoot shoot the same wall at an angle of 45 degrees it would effectively become 1.4 studs thick, 0.2 studs thicker than the M4A1 can handle. All of the math behind this is relatively simple, and if you know how it works. You can use it to your advantage to find solid cover, and see through the concealment of your foe. Penetration applies to all weapons, not just the M4, so how do you protect yourself from that M-60? simple, use the angles! If you find yourself on mall comstruction, cowering behind a 1.5 stud wall, getting the enemy to fire at the wall at a 45 degree angle will make the wall 2.1 studs, dealing only a third of the damage. At 60 degrees and greater, the wall is a touch over 3 studs thick, meaning it wont reach you. Now you know about penetration, and your ability to eyeball the thickness of a wall will give you a great indicator of how safe you are, but what if you want to get the other guy that dosent know, hiding behind that feeble wood scaffold? Just shoot. Honest, thats the trick. You miss 100% of the shots you dont take. You arent going to be able to know the exact angles and thicknesses of every wall, but if you just take a shot or two, you might hit. A quick guideline and rule of thumb, is that assault rifles can punch through the internal walls of Mall construction, and the walls in the green and yellow areas of metro. The walls by red and purple are well over 3 studs thick, so dont bother. LMGs do the real heavy lifting when it comes to wall penetration, because of their high ammo capacity, and penetration characteristics, exept for the AUG HBAR, with the worst pen in its class, much closer to assault rifles. DMRs also have decent penetration charachteristics, with 1.5 on the low end, and a whopping 3.5 on the Dragunov. And now we get to the fun part, snipers. Snipers are special, because their high damage, velocity, and accuracy make them the most fun to shoot through walls with. The AWS has the worst penetration at 2 studs, the mosin and R-700 are tied at 3, so now you know what to avoid. Both the intervention and L115A3 have 5 studs of penetration, a stat only found in snipers. the Intervention and L115A3 will go clean through cars, and remain incredibly effective because of the 3x headshot multiplier. With this in mind, it is completely possible to shoot a player through a solid concrete barrier and kill them in one shot! If this sounds crazy, you havent even seen the half of it. At the top of the pile, is the beloved BFG 50. With 10 studs of penetration (yes, 10 studs, read it again) it will go through most anything. The BFG 50 sill go through a concrete barrier, and still 1 shot to the torso within about 100 studs and it will go straight through 4 concrete barriers (2 stud each) and insta kill on a headshot. the BFG is so effective at this, that hiding means nothing. In the end, wall penetration is something the everyone has to deal with, but if you know how it works, it could save your life, end your opponents, and get you kicked for being too good. (seriously, this happened to me while I was playing on warehouse.) P.S. A rudimentary way to asses damage through walls, is to divide the wall thickness by penetration capability, and then multiply the minimum damage by the number that comes out. This is not exactly how the game works, it is based on velocity of the projectile, but this is a good rule of thumb, and is generally close enough when you're getting shot at. P.P.S. If you made it down here, you must have been a person that reads wikis when you get bored, like me, so thank you for slugging through that essay, and go impart that knowledge on someone else, hopefully through a wall of some kind. Category:Blog posts